Sir, - As a doctor, I found the correspondence between Peter Boylan and Tony Farmer (October 6th), and Jacqueline Morrissey (October 12th), on her article on midwifery practice in the National Maternity Hospital in the 1950s (Health, September 6th) made interesting reading. But if I were a working-class mother who had given birth in either Holles Street or the Coombe hospitals around that time, I think I'd be even more fascinated.
While I totally agree with the statement in the letter from Peter Boylan and Tony Farmer that "doctors surely have a duty of care to respect their patients' beliefs and the population served by Holles Street and the Coombe comprised of working-class Catholic mothers", I wonder were these ladies even consulted on their views regarding sterilisation or even contraception, not to mind a choice between a Caesarean section or a symphysiotomy?
While I cannot comment on the 1950s, I well remember in the late 1960s and 1970s fierce opposition to both female sterilisation and contraception by many medical practitioners. This was despite the fact that many women were obviously seeking some form of contraception and were taking the "pill" (then of the high-oestrogen dose variety and the least suitable for them because frequently they were older women) which was available as a so called "cycle regulator".
Even now, in cases where it is medically desirable that female sterilisation, a legal operation, should be carried out, some hospitals here, despite being totally funded by the State, refuse to allow the operation to happen on the premises.
Women were not consulted on the 1937 Constitution despite their best efforts to see its author, the then Taoiseach, Eamon de Valera. Perhaps if they had had any say, the section banning advice on contraception and the importation of contraceptives would not have been included. We boast of excellent maternal mortality figures now, but from the 1960s reports of the death of mothers of 10, 12 and even 17 children are available. - Yours, etc., Senator Mary Henry, MD,
Seanad Eireann, Baile Atha Cliath 2.